


The Neurophysiology Unit

by brangelina_of_the_gallaghers



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, Stunt week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brangelina_of_the_gallaghers/pseuds/brangelina_of_the_gallaghers
Summary: Aaron wakes up in the hospital to find history repeating itself.But maybe it's not as bad as he originally thought.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I have very little medical knowledge so just humour me. 
> 
> Here's a kind of prediction for what happens after the crash, written with less than 2 hours to spare before the crash airs.

Aaron's restoring consciousness had been in flux for a few hours before he finally broke through and back into the world. The news was delivered to him in stages and with deliberate care, the young doctor making sure he understood each piece of information. He was in Hotten hospital, had been since he was rushed in after being pulled from the water. His collar bone had been fractured, he'd broken a few ribs - narrowly escaping a pulmonary contusion - and suffered from concussion, but was mostly unscathed.

Aaron had listened - tried to wrest meaning from the facts - then had struggled to speak, his mouth dry and furred, his tongue leaden. Eventually he got one word out, the one word on his mind.

"Robert?" The doctor had repeated. "Your friend?"

"Boyfriend." The man quickly corrected.

"Right, well, your boyfriend suffered similar injuries to you and is also being treated here." He wanted to ask more, to ask where he was but he drifted back out of the room, his consciousness tuning out once more.

* * *

They gave him the full news three hours later, when he was fully awake and able to sit and had been transferred to a general ward. "We can take you to see him," the duty doctor explained. "He's in the Neurophysiology Unit."

Aaron was put in a wheelchair and pushed through the hospital by a smiley nurse who could answer none of his questions about his boyfriend. The nurse took him along a corridor of doors and into a room. The blinds were all but closed and the only lighting was above the bed in which a figure lay, its breathing being done by a machine. The room, the figure in the bed, the whole situation suddenly felt completely unreal to him, and for a moment he wondered if he was still out of it himself, dreaming these horrors. Perhaps it was he who lay on the bed, immobile and his existence sustained by technology, and he was watching himself with some separated splinter of his own mind.

A tall, lean dark-haired man in his thirties, dressed in a surgical coat and professional manner, came into the room and introduced himself as Dr Mark. 

"Is he in a coma?" Aaron asked with haste. 

"Mr Sugden has experienced a severe brain injury caused by a forceful blow to the head." Mark explained. "There was no skull fracture but he also suffered the same kind of injury you are recovering from yourself, only more severe." Mark paused. It was the type of pause prior to bad news. "I'm afraid in Mr Sugden's case, there has been a resultant arterial bleed. I'm sorry, but the bleed was into his brain-stem. To answer your question, he isn't in a coma. All indications are that he is conscious, completely conscious... but I'm afraid she is suffering from total quadriplegic paralysis."

There was another professional pause.

"All automatic and basic functions of life - breathing, swallowing, and so on are compromised. I'm afraid he's suffering from what's commonly known as locked-in syndrome. At the moment, his paralysis is truly total and only time will tell how permanent the paralysis is, but I have to be honest with you, based on the data we've obtained, the prognosis is not good."

* * *

Aaron sat up with a start, wincing at the pain in his chest.

"Hey, hey, lay back down, take it easy." It was Robert. _Robert_. 

"Thank fuck." The younger man muttered, taking in the few cuts and bruises on his boyfriend's face.

"Good to see you too." The blond laughed. "You've been out of it a while."

"How long?" Aaron croaked.

"Couple of hours."

"And you're okay?"

"I'm okay." Robert confirmed with a smile. "But I'm driving next time."

The teasing was not taken lightly. Aaron turned to look away, trying to hide the pink growing on his cheeks.

"Hey." Robert got up from his seat by the bed and moved to perch on the edge. "We're alright. That's all that matters."

"Lachlan?"

"He must've got out the boot when we were in the woods. You went to get him when the car hit the water but he wasn't in there. I'll go up to Home Farm to check but I didn't want to leave here until you'd woken up."

"Well I'm awake now."

"I just wanna spend a bit of time with you first. We finally have some alone time." He laughed. "Your mum's on her way and I'm pretty sure Vic's not far away either."

"Yeah, alright." The younger man smiled, reaching for his boyfriend's hand. The blond smiled and placed a chaste kiss on Aaron's forehead.     

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me what you think but by the time you read this you'll probably have seen the episode and know what happens so...


End file.
